Room for A Laugh with Tom Taylor

Marcel Lucont.

Published:15:00Friday 21 October 2016

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Winter is coming and as happens on, I think, an annual basis now, we are heading into a marvellous time of year for a variety of different faiths. There’s Samhain, where fires are lit for the health of pagans; Guy Fawkes, where fires are lit for the health of Protestants; and Halloween, where fires are light for party shop owners.

There’s certainly a lot of fire, which I’m not a big fan of. In 2006, Ilfracombe Rugby Club in Devon copped a fair amount of stick for their virtual bonfire in which they showed a film of a previously lit bonfire (I think recorded the week before) where only people in hard hats were present.

The film was projected onto a giant sheet strung between the rugby posts.

I, however, very much enjoyed their display. Though obviously when I say “very much enjoyed,” I very much enjoyed it from the safe distance of 300 miles away. You can never be too careful when it comes to amateur outdoor electrical wiring. I mean, have you tried gaffer taping leads to mud? Exactly.

What we’re looking at here is a 30 foot extension lead winding its way across a rugby field in the dark. No, thank you!

The virtual bonfire, of course, was the product of mid-noughties health and safety scaremongering and a rugby club committee meeting – fairly drenched in irony – that I would very much have liked to have sat in on.

No, no, I was braced for that Two-Tonne. But, seriously, it’s bonfire night next month and I’m thinking we should just show a video of fire.

Why would we do that No-Neck?

I just think it would be safer.

But what about all the safety measures we’ve installed in previous years? Marshalls, eight foot high metal fences, rain.

Yeah, no, I get all of that, Nutjob. I just think we should try really, really hard to be safe.

Okay, let’s do that.

I agree with Cauli-Ears.

Great. Well, meeting adjourned. See you all Saturday for an afternoon of rucking, mauling, scrumming, tackling and body-slamming physicality.

LADS LADS LADS!

In America there was a writer called George Plimpton who, among other things, was a great fan of pyrotechnics. In 1975 he determined to set the record for the most spectacular Roman candle ever ignited and, so, he helped create a 720 pound firework known as Fat Man which, it was predicted, would soar several thousand feet in the air.

Plimpton ceremoniously lit the fuse, at which point Fat Man gave a high-pitched whistle and blew a ten foot crater in the ground.

That is, of course, nothing compared with the extraordinary stand-up comic Chris Lynam who concludes his act by dropping his trousers and lighting a firecracker in what can only be described as an explosive finish.

None of us on the comedy circuit can compete with this fiery finale but then few of us have scorch marks in that area either.

l Tom Taylor’s Sitting Room Comedy Club returns to the St George Hotel, Harrogate on Wednesday, November 9 with the Chortle Award winning flâneur, raconteur and bon-viveur, Marcel Lucont (as seen on The John Bishop Show, Live at the Electric, Russell Howard’s Good News and Set List) plus support from Paul McCaffrey (Impractical Jokers, Russell Howard’s Good News), David Trent (Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee) and MC Danny McLoughlin (tour support for Micky Flanagan and Sean Lock).

Tickets and more information are available from the venue or www.sittingroomcomedy.com.